Sky
by Samhain13
Summary: Three descriptive, esoteric drabbles. First two are EdxWinry, third one is RizaxJean.
1. Sky

Sky

Necessary Evil: Oh, wait, wrong fandom. :-D Full Metal Alchemist is not mine. I am not affiliated with Full Metal Alchemist. If it you understand, review please. You I thank!

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She walks on the grey sky above him, her feet tracing blue arcs that he can almost see. The sky is bolder on the other side, but the color does not seep beyond; it stays, chipper and serene, on her side of the Gate. The heavens here are grey, and Ed cannot quite accept that there is absolutely nothing beyond them, not even the cold certainty of ether. This is why he loves night in this world, because he can see the stars burning distant and clear. She was like a star, too.

Al's eyes were grey, Ed remembers (but it has been so long), and stormy grey or placid grey he cannot quite decide to remember, and thinks it must have been somewhere between the two. Whatever the color the sky is today, he imagines Al's eyes are, and when he thinks of Al the ache of absence is something close and unfamiliar. Winry's eyes were violent blue, like the skies of yesterday, and yet for some reason that ache is something he knows well.

The sky of today is scarred by the traces of those flying machines (_planes_, they call them), those machines that leave thin white fumes over the slate of the sky. He looks up and the reflection of the smoggy sky in his eyes is not grey, but something clearer and brighter, the fume trails transformed into hale cumuli. In his eyes, also, are reflected the quick stirring storms that used to descend from nowhere, from a blue sky, to throw their deep cast over their world. Those were the days they crept outside to yell over the slanting rain and laugh at the wind lashing their hair against their faces. Those were the violent storms. Ed didn't see the quiet rains very often, but it happened sometimes that a clement day would weep, drops scattering on silver birch leaves and making the birches weep, too. When he was very, very young, he believed that was when the angels cried for the passing of a saint. Now he is older, and knows there are neither angels nor saints. Now he is in a different world, and the days of blue and white no longer dominate. They have given way to a smudged grey.

The Thule swathed in their black robes and clouds of incense – they search for a way to open the sky, for a way into Ed's world. They wish for the gods of Ed's world – Mustang, Pinako, Hawkeye, Scar, Winry. Ed thinks them fools, with their endless incantations and talk of mock-alchemy. But he cannot scorn them, for they are all searching for a key to the same thing – a way to break free of the grey. It comforts him, a little, to know that she keeps a piece of the blue sky safe for him.

Do you know what he sees in the skies?


	2. Rainbow

Disclaimer: Full Metal Alchemist is not mine. Oh, wait – since I last posted I bought the rights to it! Riiiiight.

(Wrong.)

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"Rainbow"

Rainbows, Winry reflected, usually appeared as a hazy slice or appeared for a brief, transparent moment before receding back into the background. A soloist behind a wall. It wasn't often you got to see a rainbow in all its full burning splendor, one that set your heart singing like a symphony orchestra.

They stood on the terrace, watching a rainbow fan, fierce and flamboyant, across the sky. Winry nudged Al. "Ed's causing trouble somewhere."

It brought a smile to Al's eyes. "Mmm."

- - -


	3. Art

"Art"

A/N: Hey again. This one is not Ed/Winry-themed like the last two, but Riza/ Havoc (I call him Jean in this fic). It's _implied _Riza/Jean, at any rate. Hope you like it. :-D.

No, I am not affiliated with Full Metal Alchemist.

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It's in the smell of sweat, the squint of the eyes, the crook of the knee, the sharp nausea as the smoke curls thin and cloistering after the shot. It's in the twang of the target, or an exasperated curse, or the sickening recoil and a bloom of red. Riza sees her trade in the cruelest places and indeed men do not call it beautiful, this skill that has no other purpose but to kill. But though she hopes her heart is not as calloused as her hands, she cannot but help to find beauty in the movements of the sharpshooter, a connection, an art.

Jean knows what he does when his finger crooks final and sure on the trigger; he hates the sight of a wound and the odor of black gunsmoke. But it is his duty, and his calling. He knows how to find grace in this crudest of sports, how a swift drop to the knee and a sharp, accurate report can be worth more than all the gold in the world.

When they fight alongside their august commander, they fight close to the ground, kneeling, reloading, dusty. Vermillion fire roars overhead. They see every result of every shot. They know the continued renewal of that awful sense of balance, and again they drop to the ground to reload.

It's in the swoop of a knee and the bend of a neck, the wind-swept hair and the cup of a palm. It's their art.

They understand.


End file.
